When Intuition Is A CurseWhy It’s Not About Success
Living With Your Waking Nightmare
Wasting Your Life
Category: Uncategorized
Broadblogs takes an insightful look at the Twilight Phenomenon.
![10886003_det[1]](http://broadblogs.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/10886003_det12.jpg)
Women often worry that porn raises men’s expectations about what their bodies should look like and what they should do in bed. And why does he want to have virtual sex with those other women, anyway? So women can end up feeling like they’re not enough or not good enough.
Men may worry that Twilight raises women’s expectations for a “one true love” that is deep and intense with a man who only has eyes for her. Who can meet to such standards?!
Men craving sex with lots of women and women wanting sex with one true love. Funny how the visions are so often at odds with each other.
In fact, the appeal of Twilight for young girls may be the opposite of porn. Porn is all about getting sex. But as Edward yearns for Bella — yet avoids intimacy for fear of killing her in vampire bloodlust —…
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Hey YOU! Yes YOU!
You feeling down, You feeling low?
Or just plain blah?
Listen to this song and it should keep your spirits up. From my new found fave band as shared by my friend.
Whoop Whoop! ♫
*dances*
The Masks We Wear
“Mate, you’ve been honest with me so let me honest back. Honestly, you could do a better job than many. You should be being heard and you should be leading the charge. However, as you say, a key thing is your personality. There is an enormous place for you and every time I’m with you I think you are a wasted talent.”
That letter was many years ago now but it has haunted me. You may argue that no one has the right to send someone a letter like that, especially since it was during a time when my life was falling apart. It really hurt. It was soul crushing.
I have always known I was different.
They say you can trace a lot of things back to your childhood. If this is true then it explains a lot in my case. One of my earliest memories is of when, at approximately the age of three or four, I hung myself in my backyard.
We lived in typical suburbia where blue-collar workers dream of long weekends and tall cocktails. Our backyard buttressed onto a virtual forest, replete with red fencing and the quintessential barbeque pit. There was also a square clothes line, the kind where someone has dropped six inches of concrete into the grass and rammed in a pole and enough line for two point four children. The exact details fail me now but nonetheless I pulled up a stool, crossed the wires, inserted my head and kicked away the floor. My sister walked out a minute or two later, and seeing my dilemma, ran in to my parents yelling, “mommy, daddy, Scott hung himself!”
When, a couple of years later, I threw a lit match into a five gallon gas can to see if it was empty I think it was beginning to dawn on my parents that their newly bald son, sporting no eyebrows and lashes, had a few issues.
My grade three report card actually said, “Scott thinks he runs the class and frankly I am sick of it!”
Like many of us I can look back on my life and see a variety of pitiful attempts to fit in. As a little child I have vivid memories of my grandmother telling me that ‘children are to be seen and not heard’. I remember being demeaned by relatives for being hyperactive and aggressive. Today I am sure I would be diagnosed as ADHD and medicated, but back then, like many of us, I was just a kid trying to fit in and be loved.’
As we grow up we begin to realize that we are supposed to act a certain way. In order to fit in and be popular many of us wore a mask to hide the hurt, to pretend we were all together, to live a lie. We began to understand that we couldn’t be ourselves because who we were on the inside just wasn’t good enough. As the poem says so well:
Don’t be fooled by me.
Don’t be fooled by the face I wear
For I wear a mask. I wear a thousand masks
masks that I’m afraid to take off
and none of them are me.
I give you the impression that I’m secure
That all is sunny and unruffled with me
within as well as without,
that confidence is my name
and coolness my game,
that the water’s calm
and I’m in command,
and that I need no one.
Many of you are afraid that if you really let someone in, let them see the real you, they would reject you. This belief has some truth to it, doesn’t it? We’ve been hurt before, ridiculed and demeaned before. The older we grow the harder it gets to be honest with people. We have loved before and been burned. We have given our heart away only to have it stepped on. Most of us have a long list of people who have done us wrong.
It’s so much easier to wear a mask.
Some of us have been wearing a mask so long we aren’t even sure who we really are. We have been forced to be someone else by our spouse or our parents or others. Many people have been told since they were a child that they aren’t good enough the way they are; that people who matter don’t like their personality, that they are somehow flawed. I know I was.
Maybe you can relate to what I am writing about. Perhaps you have said to yourself, “If people really knew me they wouldn’t love me”. You have some terrible junk in your past, things you’ve done or didn’t do, ways you couldn’t measure up. Most people have a hard time forgiving themselves for things they did ten, twenty, even thirty years ago. I’ve been there too. We have scars that never seem to heal.
I remember the day like it was yesterday. One day I just decided I’d had enough. Enough self-ridicule, enough doubt and negativity and condemnation. Enough of feeling like a loser who is unlovable. Enough of hating myself and apologizing for who I am.
I have come to realize that it’s ok being me, in spite of my glaring faults. And you know what, it’s ok to be you too.
You are amazing. Unique. Special. Maybe no one has told you that in a long time but it’s true. Maybe your partner or a family member or friend has demeaned you and hurt your self-esteem. Stop listening to them. You don’t need to change who are.You don’t have to apologize for being opinionated, or creative, outspoken or different. Take off the mask and if people don’t love you for who you really are then they are not worth it. Stop surrounding yourself with negative people who feel it’s their god-given right to put you in your place. Someone who really cares about you will want you just the way you are. Without the mask.
It’s ok to be you. It’s more than ok, it’s fantastic.
(tomorrow I’ll return to the regular stuff so if you don’t like this post, that’s ok, I needed to say it)
stick and stones may break my bones but words have the power to destroy me (or you)
“Sticks and stones may break my
bones but words will
never hurt me!”
bones but words will
never hurt me
Believe this?
These are the words I remember shouting out at kids in the playground who called me names. I was taught this rhyme, and at the time I think was probably convinced that it was true, but only because I didn’t understand that harm other than physical harm existed. I thought that “words would never hurt me” because, well how could a word trip me over and leave me bleeding on the pavement?
Now I know better. Now I know that words often hurt. Too often words are spoken (or written) without thought for the possibility of hurt being caused.
In the last few days I’ve been reminded of this over, and over again. For myself, I have been called names that I’ve never been called before, sparked by my expressing an unpopular opinion. …
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Ordinary People
I was in Kananaskis Park one year around the time of the big G8 Summit and there were huge preparations to welcome the superstars. I was in Denver when the pope visited – 5 helicopters for the religious superstar.
They didn’t have to clear customs like ordinary people, they were special.
I don’t exactly get that kind of treatment. In fact I’m not sure the border patrol holds me in high regard. It all started that day when I was coming back from the states… and what I thought I said was, “I was a speaker at a youth camp helping to bring teenagers to higher levels of social and emotional responsibility”.
That’s what I said, I was sure I said… but apparently they heard me say –“there is a body in the trunk”. I did not get to fly home in five helicopters, nor did I warrant a free pass through customs. I did warrant, however, an uncomfortable hour with a border guard who had his way with me but didn’t buy me dinner first. I am not a superstar. By most accounts I am not even a major player in any arena.
We are told everyday that we are just ordinary folk. You feel that way when you stand like cattle in the line at the coffee shop, or wait in line at Cosco behind that woman who insists on exact change and takes forever to get it. Even the ugly people on television are better looking than I am. They are hardly ordinary.
You probably never met Duke Harris. When I met him he was a teenager already dying, I just didn’t know that at the time. He was quiet, almost reclusive, around me. What I did not know was that he was a mighty warrior, a life bringer. In his own quiet way he continually went out of his comfort zone with his friends. He was more concerned about their welfare then his own. He was the one with cancer but you would never know it.
I remember the day I met his parents. Duke just stood behind them and beamed. He was proud of the love he knew, and he gave it away constantly in the face of insurmountable odds. Courage, right to the end. And then some.
I remember timidly strolling outside to tell Duke’s friends that he was dying. I will never forget the commitment those friends had, the raw love and compassion they felt.
The incredible thing about Duke was that he was painfully shy. He was not beautiful, with his balding head burned by radiation. Nor was he a gifted communicator. All Duke had was his quiet passion, commitment, and sacrificial love. People were drawn to him, though he never spoke to a crowd or published a line.
He was just a kid who passed way before his time. There were no crowds to cheer when he came by, no press to cover his sickness. No one read about his exploits in Variety.
When Duke died all he left was an enduring legacy, eventually a foundation in his honor, and dozens, even hundreds of people whose lives were indelibly changed by that one ordinary life.
I’m ok with being ordinary, I guess.
Living With A Perfectionist… Good Luck!
Perfectionists spend most of their time dreading the next potential failure, and successes are met with a feeling of temporary relief, rather than with a feeling of satisfaction in having done a thing well. Self-esteemdoes not build from feelings of relief, or the temporary reprieve of having succeeded at something. Lacking a deep and consistent source of self-esteem, failures hit especially hard for perfectionists, and may lead to long bouts of depression and withdrawal in some individuals.
Further, perfectionist individuals are often hypersensitive to perceived rejection or possible evidence of failure, and there is a fundamental rigidity in the relentless stance of bracing for failure. Unfortunately, when an individual is caught up in the bondage of perfectionist striving, that person is likely to be less interested in developing a healthy, mutually satisfying marriage and more interested in chasing the elusive rabbit in his or her own head.
Along these lines, partners of perfectionist individuals often comment on their partner’s emotional unavailability. It is very hard for a perfectionist to share his or her internal experience with a partner. Perfectionists often feel that they must always be strong and in control of their emotions. A perfectionist may avoid talking about personal fears, inadequacies, insecurities, and disappointments with others, even with those with whom they are closest. Naturally, this greatly limits emotional intimacy in a marriage.
Perfectionist individuals can also be fiercely competitive, even with their partners. Feelings of inadequacy may set the stage for downward social comparison within their own homes (“at least I’m more successful than my wife is”). Celebrating the victories of a spouse may be especially hard if such success threatens a perfectionist partner’s sense of being “the more competent partner” in the relationship.
The exhaustion that comes from striving to be perfect can also lead a perfectionistic individual to give up in the face of obstacles. Related to this, I’ve worked with a number of patients who classify themselves as perfectionists. At the same time, pictures they’ve shown me of their home environments sometimes look like the homes of hoarders. At first, it may seem puzzling that a person who lives in squalor could identify him or herself as a “perfectionist.” However, if a driving factor in an individual’s psyche is the thought, “it I can’t do it perfectly, I don’t even want to do it at all,” then the living conditions of such perfectionists makes sense.
Perfectionism and Marriage, for Equals
A marriage of equals is hard to create when one (or both) partner(s) are perfectionists. A marriage of equals is a partnership between two people who see each other as true equals. Not only must they be true equals, but both must be open to influencing each other continuously in order to become perfect for, and irreplaceable to, each other.
As I have argued in my book (www.marriageforequals.com), the way to partner with a soul mate is not to arrive as the perfect match for each other, but to become this over time. The key is how you will shape each other in the marriage as your life together unfolds. Mutual growth towards this end requires each partner to express a full range of emotions, including feelings associated with a sense of personal vulnerability.
Giving and receiving feedback about the impact we have on each other calls for unconditional self-esteem that does not over-depend on others’ evaluations of us. The self-esteem we derive from living a life consistent with our deepest values gives us the emotional freedom to learn and grow without fearing the shame of rejection. Striving for perfection leaves us empty and unstable, foundering like ships without anchors in a turbulent ocean.
What if you are a Perfectionist?
Perfectionism can be treated in therapy. Some of the same treatments that work for individuals with obsessive compulsive personality features have equal potency in the treatment of perfectionism. Any treatment that works requires you to initially tolerate significant anxiety and ultimately befriend the awareness of personal imperfection.
When perfectionism has been conquered, healthy self-esteem can flower, and when it does, you are much more likely to attract someone with the potential and desire to work at becoming the perfect partner for you (as opposed to the perfect human being).
Related articles
- 3 Powerful Time Tips To Break Free From Perfectionism (selfesteem247.wordpress.com)
- my inner perfectionist… (myhrlife.com)
- Perfection or Perfectionistic? (psychologytoday.com)
Silence The Inner Voice That’s Stressing You Out
Millions of people struggle with unhealthy levels of stress. Stress isn’t just destructive to our mental health but to our physical health as well. It weakens our immune systems and contributes to heart disease, high blood pressure, strokes, and other illnesses. These facts are important, but reading about them, or even relaying them, admittedly makes me feel a little, well… stressed. Too often reflecting on our stress just makes us feel worse. So rather than scare you straight when it comes to stress, I thought I would offer a real solution to those nagging (at times terrorizing) thoughts that lead to stress.
The mere mention of the word stress is enough to make our heads spin with thoughts of to-do lists, meetings, schedules, social calendars, kids, work, money. Whatever the trigger mechanism is, it’s always there to distract us from any potential sense of calm. When we allow our negative thoughts to take over, we spend precious energy handling the symptoms of stress instead of solving the problem or dealing with what’s really making us feel such pressure or worry.
These negative thoughts tell us when to worry and what to worry about, but never do they offer us a real solution to our problems. If we were to challenge these negative thoughts, we would soon realize that not only is this destructive thought process amplifying our stress levels but it is actually causing us much of our anxiety in the first place.
For example, many of us feel concern when we have more things we need to do or want to do than we believe we can get done. Very often, however, we are placing too much pressure on ourselves and setting our expectations too high. In effect we are setting ourselves up, and literally scheduling ourselves out, to get stressed. When we set our standards too high, we often set ourselves up to later become a target for our critical inner voice. We start to have self-critical thoughts like: What is wrong with you? You never give 100 percent to anything. Can’t you just get one thing right? You’re such a failure!
Even when times are tough or the pressure being placed on us is external, we can seek out an inner sense of calm by quieting those inner voices that exacerbate the problem. This is not meant to undermine the fact we all have real concerns about our lives. We all struggle at some point with our careers, our families and our futures. Every one of us has concerns at one time or another about keeping a job, falling in love or raising our kids. However, what we actually feel about these things is usually never as bad as what our critical inner voice is telling us to feel about these things.
For example, when we lose a job, we may have thoughts like: What are you going to do now? You can’t do anything. How humiliating!
When we go through a break up with a partner, we may hear voices such as: See? No one could ever love you. You’re going to wind up alone.
Even an event as simple as forgetting to mail a letter can get our self-attacks going: You’re so irresponsible. How are you ever going to get anything done?
These thoughts impair us in our actions and lead us to feel demoralized and even more stressed out. We can interrupt this cycle by becoming more aware of the thoughts that are propelling our feelings of worry. For example, a friend of mine noticed she was waking up in a bad mood every morning. Feeling overwhelmed and rushed, her morning mood was slowly infiltrating her whole day. Snapping at people, overdosing on caffeine and rubbing her head to the point of almost literally tearing her hair out, she knew something had to change.
To understand her 7 a.m. stress, I suggested my friend write down all the thoughts she was having before she went to bed. When my friend did this, she noticed her head was full of vicious self-attacks. Her negative thoughts surfaced every night when she finally took a rest from pushing herself through her day. My friend recounted her thoughts to me: What did you actually accomplish today? You’re no closer to your goals then you were yesterday. Everyone hates you. You snap at everybody. Are you even doing a good job? What’s so important about what you do anyway. You never make time for anyone. You’re so selfish. You’d better work harder tomorrow.
When my friend told me her attacks, I was appalled. “No wonder you’ve been feeling under pressure in the morning. You’re tearing yourself apart right before you go to bed.” As soon as my friend realized this pattern, she started to feel compassion for herself and noticed herself feeling relieved of her morning anxiety.
To fully rid oneself of the critical inner voice, one must not only identify the negative thoughts but stand up to them. Putting our voices in the second person can help us make this initial separation. Try to write down your critical thoughts, first as “I” statements, then as “you” statements. If you have thoughts of feeling stupid, write down “You are so stupid.” Next, stand up to this internal enemy by writing down responses to your critical thoughts with the more realistic perspective of a compassionate friend. For example, you could write, “I am not stupid. Anyone can make a mistake. I have a lot of areas in which I am intelligent and confident.” The intention here is not to build yourself up, but to gain a more realistic view of yourself.
Finally, think about what the actions are that could counter your critical inner voices. When my friend had an attack that she was snapping at people, it didn’t help that she was acting on her self-critical thoughts by getting moody and lashing out at co-workers. Avoid actions that will lead you to feel worse. If eating three slices of pizza relieves you after a stressful day only to leave you later stressing over your weight, it’s best not to use that behavior as a coping mechanism. Remember the critical inner voice is tricky and can sound soothing or friendly as it lures you into self-destructive behaviors. Have that second glass of wine. Just stay home and relax on your own. Later on that voice will punish you with thoughts like: There you go having another drink. You can’t stick to anything. What a loner. You’ll never meet anyone.
The voice can also tell us that we are being victimized. When we have thoughts like, Why is everyone walking all over you? No one else does anything around here, we put ourselves in a powerless position and blame others for the pressure we’ve put ourselves under.
Dealing with stress means taking our own side without feeling like a victim. It means empowering ourselves against our inner critic and not allowing that critic to dictate our lifestyle. That critic will put up a fuss when we act against it and cause us anxiety over the changes we make in our lives. However, the more we persevere and the longer these negative voices in our heads are quieted, the better able we are to live in the moment without worrying about the past or the future. We can then deal with everything in our lives one moment, one step, one deep breath and one thought at a time.
The State Of Faith In Canada
A new study published in Canada shows the same trends evident in U.S. churches are no less real in hockey country. The report titled “Hemorrhaging Faith” (I can already imagine the solution-based conference and book: “Clotting Faith”), is featured in the latest issues of Canada’s Faith Today magazine.
Some of the findings include:
-Only 1/3rd of young adults in Canada who attended church weekly as a child still attend as adults.
-Among those who no longer attend church, 1/2 have also abandoned belief in Christianity.
-There are four primary barriers that prevent young adults from engaging the church: Hypocrisy, judgement, exclusivity, and failure.
Depression and Western Culture
Puts things in perspective. Some amazing wisdom from a depressed comedian…
(warning, lots of swearing…)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLjyo51qmrI
Lowering Your Expectations
Do you want to be happy in life and with your relationships? Lower your expectations!
Most of us grow up believing we are going to be rich, or famous, or at least happy. It seems, however, that the real world rarely lives up to our expectations.
I love how Jerry Seinfeld sums up the problem with the real world: “The bad thing about television is that everybody you see on television is doing something better than what you’re doing. Did you ever see anybody on TV like just sliding off the front of the sofa with potato chip crumbs on their face? Some people have a little too much fun on television: the soda commercial people – where do they summon this enthusiasm? Have you seen them?
“We have soda, we have soda, we have soda”, jumping, laughing, flying through the air – it’s a can of soda. Have you ever been standing there and you’re watching TV and you’re drinking the exact same product that they’re advertising right there on TV, and it’s like, you know, they’re spiking volleyballs, jetskiing, girls in bikinis and I’m standing there – “Maybe I’m putting too much ice in mine?”
Though many people in the addictions field don’t speak about boredom and the real world, it remains one of the main reasons recovering addicts relapse. They have lived in a world of adventure and the real world moves very slow. In short, it’s boring. The typical day used to start with cravings and emotionalism, they would spend time looking for a means to buy drugs, go to the deal, do the deal, take the drugs, zone out for a period of time, come down, clean up, and go to bed. Compare that to the heroine addict who goes on a Methadone program. He or she gets up, goes to the pharmacy, gets a Dixie cup of methadone, drinks it… now what? It’s 8:30 in the morning and your schedule is done.
Believe what you want about substance use, it does fill up your day. Most recovering addicts complain that ‘normie land’ is boring, slow, and generally a let-down.
Let’s be honest, they are right. The real world is not like it is on television. Your job, no matter what that is, is usually a series of days you will probably not remember. That new car is exciting for a week or two then it’ just a car. Even relationships get stale after a while.
I’m trying to lower my expectations.
I was ADHD before it was cool. The world seemed to move at a snail’s pace. Even now, as a full grown adult I find most days are just… ok. It is tempting to become despondent and self-medicate, or give up, or get bitter. It is also tempting to feel that life is unfair, that things haven’t turned out the way they were supposed to in my childhood fairytale. I can rail and cry and take all the Cipralex I want, things may not turn into Game Of Thrones. There may be no more dragons to slay or maidens to rescue and somehow, some way, I need to learn to be ok with that.
I have come to believe that, at least for me, maturity and wisdom has something to do with learning to be content in spite of my outside world. I have seen firsthand how, when I lower the emotional impact of my expectations of my partner, my children, my work, and my world, that I am able to be more at peace. I am trying to get to that point in my marriage, for example, where I have no expectations of my wife. If she shows up I’m happy. She is crazy enough to love me and want to share life with me so what else can I ask? I’m not there yet but I have noticed that, as I endeavor to change my way of thinking, it is making a difference in my life.
Cognitive Therapy teaches us to realize that changing our mind may be better than trying to change our actions. If we can do this then our actions become more authentic and flow out of who we are, not how we feel. Change your mind and your ass will follow. As I begin to shift my focus from my unreasonable demands, as I learn to take care of myself before pushing my agenda on others, as I take the time to develop an attitude of gratitude and as Covey said, “Seek first to understand and then to be understood”; than slowly my world begins to change.
“Life is a journey not a destination”, they say. It is never too late to transform your life, if you are willing to put in the work.
scott-williams.ca 